Are Climate Scientists in it for the Money?

With climate change, ad-hominem attacks on scientists are intended to shake public trust in the scientific evidence that underpin the whole issue. After all, who could be more villainous than the world’s climate scientists? Does one really think this group of bicycle-riding, organic-cotton-wearing PhDs might be pulling off a skillfully-coordinated global conspiracy, one involving 100 years of research from hundreds of scientists all over the world?

For climate change deniers their first line of argument is that climate scientists are in it for the money.

Such sentiments are reliable laugh lines at professional scientific conferences, but given how pervasive they are, they’re not funny at all. Nonetheless, they can spur some good questions. How do research grants work? Why won’t this myth die? And where’s the real financial lever in the climate change debate?

This would be comical if it weren't about something so serious.  This facile argument is having consequences, delays in solving the problem of climate change which will mean very serious outcomes for the planet.

Here's Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech.

One of the most frequent objections I hear is, “you scientists are just in it for the money."

What many people don’t realize, though, is that most of us could easily have chosen a different field – like astrophysics, where I began my education – where we’d make exactly the same money. Or, we could use our skills in industry, working for a fossil fuel company (I interned at Exxon during my master’s degree and published several papers with Exxon scientists), and earn easily ten times what we do now. If I wanted to make more money, there are a lot of ways smart people with technical skills could do that without putting up with the harassment climate scientists receive every day.

Then she adds the facts: money from research grants isn’t making people rich. It just covers basic costs, sometimes just barely.

None of the research money I receive goes into my personal pocket; instead, it’s used to pay graduate students the princely sum of about $25k per year and around $2,000 a pop to publish our research papers.

And why is this myth have such a strong hold on climate change deniers?

Wonder why some of these climate myths stick around forever, despite their being wrong? That’s because they’re designed with a strong understanding of how human brains hang onto information. These messages offer the precise fodder their intended audience wants to hear (irrespective of whether the information is true or not), and they are “sticky.” That is, they are short, simple, and easy to remember and repeat. Repeatable messages beget even more repeating, and pretty soon the refrain seems so familiar that it must be true. Interests opposed to action on climate change have spent nearly $3 billion on disinformation campaigns, plus over $2 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions in just 10 years, according to investigations by InsideClimate News. That kind of cash buys some well-designed and well-distributed messaging.

The simple fact is

Funding for scientific research doesn’t go into scientists’ pockets. It goes into the operational costs of research programs. If climate scientists were truly interested in money, they have other more lucrative options.

 What other reasons do climate change deniers have to support their positions.  They have the few climate science dissidents as opposed to the vast, overwhelming majority of climate scientists.  So to make their argument against global warming, they have to resort to ad hominem attacks on the scientists.  Considering the consequences for our planet, they have to realize that they need to wake up.